Courtesy of Emerging Markets Insights, commentary on issues that must be addressed for multinationals to succeed in India:
1. Fragmentation:
Multinationals have to move out of the traditional Tier-1 cities in order to adapt to India’s unique urbanization trend:
The rise of manufacturing in rural India has led to robust job and wealth growth, which means a lot of the rural population, is not interested in moving to large-cities but instead, we can expect small villages to turn in to small towns, then big towns and eventually into large cities. This means that as a multinational- you will have to go to your end customers, and not the other way around- waiting for them to come to the traditional metro cities
Towns simply grow into densely populated cities, as opposed to a conventional migration of people from towns to cities
Expenditure on durable goods, education, consumer services (entertainment, transport, etc.), and fuel have grown faster than the average over the last 10 years
2. Infrastructure Issues:
India’s consistent underinvestment in infrastructure, lack of regulatory reforms, and generally unstructured style of conducting business adds an additional layer of complexity for multinationals operating in the country: